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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Actually I went to bed Sunday night beneath the gaze of a blood moon. But it was Monday morning when I checked on-line to see all the beautiful pictures from my friends at Facebook recording the Blood Moon. Literally friends from all over the world were posting.

I love the idea that we can all share in this phenomena as it will be 33 years before it comes again. I'm not going to say how old I'll be then, but for me it might not come again.

I remember when I first heard him speak at an AWP panel. (And, lets be honest, his body of work is not overwhelming. He has not written a novel and had at the time a published memoir The Beautiful Struggle). But it was his non-fiction, his essays, his opinion pieces that spoke the loudest. Not like Trump loud, but a methodical common-sensical deliberate straightforward plain talk journalism that brought many more people into the "conversation." His writing goes beyond the echo chambers, the news media chatter, and the polarized position points that we've all become accustomed to.

Genuine.

In the article link above about the award the committee in fact cited his unique blend of "personal reflection and historical
scholarship" about race relations in the US. The
foundation highlighted his 2014 essay, The Case for Reparations, which
it said "prompted a national conversation" about the treatment of black Americans.

Congratulations to a young man who deserves this award for his work and also representing under-reported views in the media. Thank you. You're the man.

Friday, September 25, 2015

I tune in to the three or four PBS channels we get
automatically. There’s nothing on any other channels I’m generally interested
in, so the last couple of nights I watched the 2-parter on Walt Disney. Such a
sad/happy man who loved children/money/legacy. Yet certainly a visionary. It’s
hard to imagine another country at the time who could have produced a Disney
except a post-war America.

That being said, I’m not sure Disney had it right with his
City of Tomorrow.

How does one go from flying teacups to Epcot, Ford and GE
headquartered next to each other. It’s not surprising that corporations didn’t
share his vision of utopia. The only place you might see clusters of corporate
headquarters might be some offshore island. Remember when Walgreens threatened
to leave Illinois and relocate overseas because they were done paying taxes?
Epcot: concentric circles of progress, connected by a mono-rail. Not if the
Republicans have anything to say about it, they’re constantly threatening to defund
highspeed rail.

The City of Tomorrow has to be able to tackle global
warming, the disappearing middleclass, and lack of manufacturing jobs. Why does
the City of Tomorrow seem so yesterday? Because Disney was in fact looking
backwards as he designed his city. It was after a visit to his hometown of
Marceline, Missouri (before the family lost their farm) that he began to form
ideas for a futuristic “modern” city.

Modern based upon . . . what?

But Walt was slowly dying by this time, unable to catch a
deep breath. Eventually “EPCOT: A SHOWCASE TO THE WORLD OF AMERICAN FREE
ENTERPRISE” was scaled back. Now it’s just a corporate theme park.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

It’s always something new at Facebook—except a button to
change things back to where they were.

Lately they’ve added a new feature. Facebook memories.
Borrowing from your own timeline, Facebook will post something from your past.
The first couple of times I smiled. The memory was precious.

But the last couple have been painful, which got me
thinking. What about the couple who has now split? Or the accidental death of a
loved one? Or any number of scenarios where the past thrown back at us brings
heartache.

I’m sure I can google and find out how to turn this feature
off. I can go to Facebook support and under a pull down menu select what my
problem is and then receive an automatic response saying they have received my
message, and it is in the queue. Whereupon I receive another message asking how
that response was. If my problem has been resolved.

No, and no, and no.

Sometimes there is no resolution to hard memories. They
continue to haunt us, make their way back to the forefront of our mind. There
is no escape from Facebook and Facebook memories.

Monday, September 21, 2015

I don’t have very good luck with salon cuts. Probably if I
were more decisive or picky it might help the haridresser. Instead I go in and
serendipitously say do something. I don’t go very often.

But I had this Groupon for a cut and color.

The experience reinforced the impression that I am an old lady.
I showed her a picture and gave her what I thought was a good verbal
description: short and sporty.

She kept showing me Pinterest pics of models with hairdos
that require blow drying, gels, and a live-in stylist.

She conferred with her colleagues and came back with pretty
much the same hair style. It was someone I wasn’t. I didn’t know how to say it
any plainer. Short and sporty.

I should have said, Let’s forget this. But I was starting to
feel like I might be wrong and just wanted to go with the flow. Again, this
isn’t how a customer should feel. I was reminded of when I went shopping for my
wedding dress with someone who had good taste and strong opinions. She kept
pushing me to go punk when I kept thinking English Tea Garden. Finally I just
gave in and bought a dress that she suggested, something that reminded me of
the female vocalist in Cowboy Junkies. Not me.

Thank God I returned it.

She wetted it and pinned it up in several places and took
two snips. “What do you think?”

Uh, I thought you’re going to keep going, right? She had the
picture right in front of her.

Anyway, this kept up for over an hour. She’d hesitantly make
an incision and ask me what I thought. Finally, I said, You have to stop with
the questions. Can you make it look like the picture? By the way, she was NOT
in training. Though I wondered if because I had a Groupon they might have
assigned me someone new, someone needing to build up her own list of clients.

What was killing me was the abortive effort—combing out a
clump, pulling it toward her scissors and then letting it drop, and then
repeating this motion without making a cut. After two or three tries she’d
finally do something, only to do the same thing all over again. At a certain
point I wanted to snatch the scissors out of her hands and ask, Can I just
finish up here?

After 90 minutes she asked if I needed another tea, more
water? My blood sugar had dropped. What I really needed was a sandwich. How
close are we to being done?

She seemed hurt. I can go get my manager. Yes, I thought,
maybe she could finish me off. They conferenced in a corner. Then it hit me.
She’s crying. She’s likely complaining about the bitch in the chair whom she
just can’t please. I get it. I stood up and pulled the cape off.

But do you love it? she begged. She followed me to the front
desk,asking over and over, if I loved it. I realized I had to make her happy. So I lied. YES!

It was the most unfeminist thing ever. And, I hated myself for
it. I caved in like I used to, used to with my parents, teachers, the wedding
shopper. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. But first she told me, if I
didn’t like it I could always come back.

Friday, September 18, 2015

A year ago I was in Sweden. It’s hard to say what I was
doing exactly—it was such an amazing trip. Catching up with old friends, tea on
a hillside overlooking a ruined monastery, picnics by big glacial lakes,
swimming in those cold, cold lakes, biking, hiking, and those long incredible
breakfasts.

Breakfast has always been my favorite meal and the morning
smorgasbord in Sweden hits all the high notes. A thick creamy yoghurt, Wasa
crisp bread, and thin slices of cheese.

Every day the sky was a miracle of bright blue. I think I
have Swedish blood running through me. The way the sun moved and moved me, the
way it hung and stayed up there for way past what would have been sunset for me
back home. There are moments here where the sun is suspended and sends a golden
glow over the landscape and my pulse quickens: Sweden!

I went “after the season” which I’m not quite sure what that
means as the temperatures were moderate. I’d ride my bike all day soaking up
the sunshine without burning, but tanning instead. The few days of rain only
made me love the country more—once as I sat under an awning eating a snack at
an old Roman ruin (I know, crazy how those Romans got around). I stayed dry
contemplating a statue in the corner of the mother and child while eating some
sweet bread from a konditori: KONDITORI (noun) \Khan- da- tor- ree\:
1: Traditional Swedish gathering place to enjoy friends over great coffee, fine
baked goods and confections.
2: Where one goes for a coffee break

I was able to relax and let go before coming home.

Perhaps a year ago I was cycling Gotland island. Riding
across the pastoral landscape, checking into a hostel at the tip and taking a
ferry to Faro where that evening I sat in a candlelit church and listened to a
gospel choir and toured the Bergman Center. The next day I cycled past several
old churches that served the fishing communities that once made up Gotland. I
sat on the steps of such a church waiting for my hosts to come back from a
scout meeting. Yes, it had been a rainy day and the sky was getting darker, but
with lights on the bike I followed their car down a gravel land to the farm
house at the end.

I miss the feeling most of all. Sweden felt safe and do-able
for a solo female traveler. The world was mine.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Remember the old days? Before the internet—I used to read
physical books. Read poems that shook me to the core. I’d go to the back of the
anthology and read the 2 – 3 line bio and if possible there might be an entry
for them in the World Book Encyclopedia. Maybe not, if they weren’t white or
mainstream.

Of course I didn’t need to know someone’s gender (Evelyn
Waugh is a guy? S.E. Hinton is a woman?), or their orientation (hello! Go Tell It On the Mountain James
Baldwin), or if they were black or white. Countee Cullen was REALLY confusing.
I got the work though.

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

-"Incident" by Countee Cullen

Growing up I often felt like an outsider, so these words
resonated with me regardless if Countee was a boy and not a girl, regardless if
he was black, which he was, or gay, yup. I read blind.

Actually
it’s more complicated than that. More like: White man uses pen name Yi-Fen Chou
to get published.

The family of a woman named Yi-Fen Chou, who attended
the same high school in Fort Wayne, Ind., as Mr. Hudson, has stepped forward,
demanding that he immediately stop using it. “I’m just aghast,” Ellen Y.
Chou, the sister of Yi-Fen Chou, said in an interview. Mr. Hudson’s use of the
name, she added, showed a “lack of honesty” and “careless disregard for Chinese
people and for Asians.”

So . . . some white dude ripped off a woman’s name, a
woman of Chinese descent, appropriated her name for a contest which won him
best of the best in the 2015 edition of Best American Poetry.

This
reminds me of a story I wrote, no, really, I wrote it, that appeared a few
years ago in Greensilk
Journal called I’m Lying to You by Najeeb Asim-Wolfe.

At first I did
it just to see. Not really a prank, more of a lark. What could it hurt?
Certainly not my reputation already swimming in a sea of uncertainty. I mean
who would really know. And, anyway, does it matter?

Call it
frustration, the hard knocks of life bowling me over, utter rejection.
Desperation. Or maybe I did want to transform myself, be someone other than the
miserable person I was. The liar I turned out to be. After a year of submitting
stories to various journals I was ready to call it quits. I sat in front of my
monitor and rubbed my hands vigorously over my face, maybe hoping to pull my
eyes out. What was I thinking—that I could make it as a writer? I hadn’t
exactly gone out on a limb i.e. quit my job or taken out an additional
loan—Thank God! I was already in hock, debt up to my ears—though I did cut back
on my hours at work in order to write every morning. What was I thinking!
I stupidly told my friends that I was doing it, the BIG PUSH, come hell or high
water (Aren’t these clichés?). I’d either make it or not. Not.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Remember the old days? Before the internet—I used to read
physical books. Now, of course, you can find it all on-line. I just watched a
video this a.m. of Ta-Nehisi
Coates talking about his writing process. I’ve got to admit he’s the man.
If there is anything out there written by him, I read it because he’s the real
deal.

He said writing is about failure.

Pretty much failure after failure, like one word after
another. You write one crappy thing and then come back and fix it and then see
other things that got to be fixed. Like a Whack a Mole. Writing is basically
getting started and then changing it and seeing where you need research, where
you need to pull it together. Relax and make mistakes.

I write about this in Freeze Frame and 365 Affirmations forthe Writer. Montaigne called his style of writing “essay,” meaning attempts.
Listen, you don’t have anything to prove. Just try to write that memory from
your point of view; you don’t have to have all the answers or photographic
recall. It’s about reflection, revealing one facet and leaving the rest for
some other time. How the new hat felt, the way your sister made you always pull
the sled, that first Easter after Mom’s cancer treatments that were only meant
to prolong her life 3 - 4 months, moonlight on the back patio, your first bite
of key lime pie, meeting the love of your life for the very first time—and perhaps
letting them go.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Continuing on themes of the 21st century—has anyone
else thought about the irony:

Trainloads of humanity stuffed into railway cars trying
desperately to get INTO Germany.

Let this be a lesson to the 20th century self who
thought people can’t change, that countries are evil, that the world is
hopeless. I’m sure it felt that way 100 years ago in the trenches and 70 years
ago in the camps.

Forgiveness is never cheap or easy.

But here is a nation leading other nations to open their
borders and accept others not like them but like them in so many other ways.

Humanity washed ashore. I don’t need to post the picture of
the little 3-yr old boy face down in the surf, on the coast of Turkey to tell
you all of our hearts have to change.

After KristallnachtGerman
Jews were desperate to get out, to flee what might not at first seemed like a
crisis. No one ever thought it was going to get too bad. They weren’t at first
asylum-seekers, but they knew that something was coming, a dark tide, that
would overwhelm them if they stayed. And, that only became so much clearer as
the Third Reich continued with their anti-Semitic policies.

And countries such as the US and elsewhere had quotas, only
allowing so many Jews to enter. History now tells us, we should have done more.

Will we reach out to those fleeing Syria, who have seen
their government turn on them and then radicals overrun their cities. They are
fleeing catastrophe. Or will we wait for the pages of time to tell us how late
we were, how short-sighted, how we lacked imagination—for the terror that may
befall a nation, a generation?

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Couchsurfing is where you stay with total strangers using
the Couchsurfing website in order to connect on-line, matching hosts to travelers.

I probably host 20 surfers a month, but that is nothing
compared to the requests I receive daily. I tack it up to living in a
world-class city, but also there just aren’t too many reliable and willing
hosts. In the cosmic balance of things there are way more travelers than those
offering a couch.

Why do I do this—when of course it takes up a LOT of time.
1) reading the requests 2) responding to the requests 3) then the actual
hosting? Because I love to meet people. Not always, and especially not when
their train, plane, bus is late and I have to get up early the next day. But,
because I have a memory of traveling and wishing I could get inside a culture.

There was a time (and probably still is) when I wanted to go
and live in Italy. To change my country, to change my life. To be someone else.

At none of the ex-pat websites was I able to find people who
wanted to adopt a 40ish-year old woman with meager savings.

But I did discover Couchsurfing and because I didn’t have
plans at that moment to travel I decided the next best thing was for me to
host. And that was the beginning of a never-ending parade of guests from
everywhere.

Really, everywhere. Little islands in the Pacific. Small
towns in the south of France where the village school only has about 20
students. We met a man from Iran here on a student visa studying engineering
who carried a dream of writing a story in English. He inspired me. We’ve hosted
different kinds of family traveling with their children to explore other ways
to do things. I can say that I have fallen in love and wanted to adopt a good
many of my surfers.

We even stay in contact to this day. Are Facebook friends.
Have visited one another since that initial visit. This is what couchsurfing to
me is all about.

I have also learned to take the bad along with the good, knowing
the cosmic reality and acknowledging the disproportionate balance of things.

Lately though I have been getting an overwhelming number of
requests from people without a profile, who don’t even phrase a request in such
a way that they acknowledge that they are asking you a favor. They think it is
an app like Uber and are dialing me up to stay in my house. Sometimes hours before they actually arrive in the city.

This is scary. Like I would automatically take in a complete
stranger without references. Yeah, sometimes, but always they have to be able
to communicate via their request and tell me in a completely
filled-out profile who they are. The question is: Why aren’t people doing this?

I have a form response I send back explaining how—and they
still write me that they CAN’T—“can you help me with this?” And, I think, have
you NEVER filled out an application for a job, school, fellowship, on-line
dating. Do you not update your status on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Tinder.
It’s hard to image in this digital age that there isn’t something out there
that even in a pinch they can snatch and grab and paste.

What really is freaking me out is the number of women,
young, naïve, pretty who say they don’t care if it is a bed or space on the
floor they are so desperate for a free place and I am worried for their safety.
Is a free place to stay worth the risk of staying just about anywhere??? I am
not going into detail because the stories and facts belong to the individuals—but
I get urgent requests from women who have gotten themselves unwittingly into
danger. I tell them to leave IMMEDIATELY. Do not base your actions upon if I
have a place for you. Always get out of danger.

The question I really want to ask—is even if you think it is
an app, does that mean you stop thinking, that you stop using common sense,
that somehow technology, your cell phone, something will save you from a truly
harrowing experience. That perhaps another app will rescue you???

I would love to tell the women who request to stay with me,
like some wandering orphans, empower yourself. Fill out an interesting profile,
communicate to your potential host that you are a traveler, someone who is
interested in cultural exchange, who wants to understand the what and why of a
locality. Tell them you are more than someone who needs a bed for one night.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

According to Martin Amis,
"fiction is the only way to redeem the formlessness of life."

Without story my own life narrative would be rather bleak. I
need fiction, stories, lies even to move forward.

When I come across fiction so powerful it blows me away I’ll
want to get on Facebook or run up to the rooftops and scream: READ THIS BOOK! I’m
also lucky in that I have a good friend who reads and absorbs fiction like it
ain’t no fiction, just like me. We are able to talk book. A language of
intuition, that automatically assumes that most pain can be assuaged or distracted
by an enthralling fable.

I think this is how mankind has been able to continue in the
face of wooly mammoths, armies of invaders, revolution, stock market crashes,
hurricanes, job loss—all the marquee stuff that stops us cold. We can pick up
the flag and go on if only we can carry a really good story around inside of
us.

Tammy read Girl Child by Tupelo Hassman and had a literal
literary reaction to it.

Girlchild
She walks away from the trailer park
The Nobility double wide,
turning into spark and smoke
roaring and crackling
lighting her way
casting shadows that hover and slink.

READ THE REST HERE, because she had her poem published in an
on-line literary journal called Across the Margin. Tammy can be found blogging HERE.

I wanted to send out a prompt for my readers (both of you)—try
writing a flash or essay response to some work that has resonated with you. I’d
actually LOVE to see Tammy write a series of these poems—one to Scout (To Kill A Mockingbird), to Lily Owens (The Secret Life of Bees), or Bone from Bastard out of Carolina. To the multitude
of girls who read and dream and reach.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

School is back in session in just a few weeks! Do you know any young adults
who are gluten free and/or suffer from food allergies? I am sharing an e-book
that I help nurture along. Jack Donahue has been gluten/dairy/corn free for
over 12 years and knows how to negotiate the world with food allergies.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

The corpse flower, a rare and infamous plant from Sumatra
that blooms occasionally, like every 7 years, and when it opens, for the magic
of 6 – 8 hours, mostly at night, it emits the most horrendous smell. The smell
of death that attracts carrion beetles and flesh flies so that pollination
occurs.

The build up to this event was on par with the Chicago Fire
Festival that took place downtown last year which resulted in millions of visitors
clogging the riverfront on a cold night to watch papier mache floating houses
ignite. Except they didn’t. The whole thing was a dud.

Poor Spike fell victim to its own media hype. He, she, it,
refused to open. The natural signs leading up to the phenomena were all there,
the anticipation was grounded in science, but perhaps conditions were not
right. Anyway, Sunday morning the botanists knew something was amiss and cut
her open to peel away the leave and reveal the maroon-colored spathe. These
leaves were accordion pleated like a beautiful vintage dress.

I happened to be one of the lucky visitors that got to see
Spike, undressed and naked before the adoring crowds. I needed to get in a long
bike ride and from my house to the Chicago Botanical Gardens near the Lake/Cook
line round-trip is about 55 miles. I say lucky because even though I signed up
for an e-mail notification I never received news about the intervention. I
stood in line with members who said they didn’t know either but had just
dropped by. They had been visiting Spike for a week just in case.

Fantastic Resource!

NEW!!! e-book edition

eBook Edition Has bonus Material

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Quick Bio

Jane Hertenstein is the author of Home is Where We Live: Life at a Shelter Through a Young Girl’s Eyes (picture book), Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady (with Marie James), and Beyond Paradise (YA fiction). See BOOKS
She has taught mini courses in memoir at the university level as well as seminars at Cornerstone Festival, Prairie School of Writing. Jane is listed on the Illinois Artists Roster. Roster Artists are certified by the Illinois Arts Council to work in public schools introducing young people to the arts. She lives in Chicago where she facilitates a “happening” critique group.